Liberal Education and America's Promise: Excellence for Everyone as a Nation Goes to College (LEAP), the decade-long campaign launched earlier this year by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), rests on two fundamental premises. The first holds that there is an emerging, if hidden, consensus among business and civic…

In this article, the author examines briefly several broad themes in reading reform to see what these can tell about policy makers' respect--or lack of respect--for teachers of reading. He talks about the current discourse of "scientifically-based" research which is about teachers, teachers who are blamed for reading failures. He…

The expansion of post?16 education in the United Kingdom makes young people more dependent, and for longer, on their parents. Generational change has been so great that parents with no history of postschool education are now expected to support children while they study. Some parents adhere to a working-class belief in self-sufficiency through…

This study uses a poststructural analysis to explicate the social production of Whiteness in a college classroom. Whiteness scholars define Whiteness as reference to a set of locations that are historically, socially, politically, and culturally produced, and intrinsically linked to relations of domination. Using this framework of social…

In order to earnestly carry out the spirit of Comrade Jiang Zemin's February 1, 2000, "Conversations on Issues in Education" and his important speech at the Party Central Committee's Ideological and Political Work Conference; further strengthen and improve primary and secondary school (including vocational secondary school) moral…

This article reports on a study of schooling in southwest Nova Scotia. Using Bourdieu's concepts of cultural capital and habitus, I analyze rural men's relationships involving identity, work, place, and schooling to explain continuing high male dropout rates and local traditions of ambivalence and resistance to schooling. I conclude that the…

Many studies have examined the relationship between environmental processes and literacy outcomes. However, nearly all of this research has examined biologically related family members living together, thus confounding genetic and environmental influences. The purpose of this study was to address this issue using a sample of 262 adopted children…

A study of high school seniors' perceptions of colleges, conducted in 1979, was replicated 23 years later. The study affords an opportunity to examine perceptual changes over time and provides an additional perspective on the positioning of colleges, apart from other well-known surveys. This information may be useful for those involved in…

This paper aims to study the various forms of education to be found amongst the Kisongo Maasai, a pastoral population in Tanzania, both in their own right and in terms of what their encounter with one another implies. The late and rather limited development of schooling in that remote area and educational policies, as well as the pastoral way of…

This summer, "Instructor's" Editor in Chief, Bernadette Grey, traveled to Washington, D.C., for an exclusive one-on-one meeting with the U.S. Department of Education's high-profile leader, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings. Appointed by President Bush, Spellings is responsible for the overall direction, supervision, and…

How does the rhetoric of managerialism influence actors' perceptions about the ultimate goals of Portuguese higher education (HE)? From the data, based on interviews, three major themes were extracted: teaching/research relationship, HE's cultural and social relevance, and its economical relevance. The actors' narratives led to the conclusion that…

This paper begins as an initial rejoinder to the ideas expressed by Ross (2000) in The Promise and Perils of E-Learning: A critical look at the new technology. In his article, Ross supports the traditional practices of pedagogy at the primary school level--face-to-face pedagogy--and then critiques what he describes as a "fetishisation"…

Since much of the previous research on exit exams, including CEP's own work, has looked at national patterns of implementation and passing rates, this study aimed to benefit policy and practice by focusing on the local level. Specifically, case studies were conducted in Jackson, MS and Austin, TX that examined how classroom instruction and other…

In light of a major study on educational outcomes, this paper explores how Aboriginal language dominance and virtually exclusive use of oral communications in one Aboriginal group has been affected by its interaction with Western institutions. For several years negotiations have been undertaken among the Innu Nation of Labrador, the province of…

This paper explains Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences (MI) and discusses questions raised about MI theory in regard to validity, assessment, and implications for instructional activities. MI theory asserts that human cognitive competence is best described in terms of a set of abilities, talents, and mental skills that each child…